Then she went off a second time, as before, and having crawled a few
paces, looked again behind her, and for some time stood still, uttering
the most piteous cries. But still her cubs did not rise to follow her,
and she returned to them, and with signs of the greatest fondness, went
around them separately, placing her paws upon them tenderly, and giving
utterance to the same cries of distress. Finding, at last, that they
were cold and lifeless, she raised her head toward the ship, and growled
in indignation for the murder. Poor creature! the men on board returned
her angry cry with a shower of musket balls. She fell between her cubs,
and died licking their wounds.
Hans Christian Andersen, in his "Picture Book without Pictures," relates
an anecdote, in his droll way, about a tame bear, who got loose, when
the man who was exhibiting him was at dinner, and who found his way into
the public house, and went straight to a room where there were three
children, the eldest of whom was only some six or eight years old. But,
Hans, you may tell the rest of the story in your own peculiar language:
"The door sprang open, and in stepped the great rough bear! He had grown
tired of standing out there in the yard, and he now found his way up the
steps. The children were very much frightened at the great, grim-looking
beast, and crept each one of them into a corner. But he found them all
out, and rubbed them with his nose.
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